Boredom

Sad but true – lately when I lace up and hit the road – I feel like stopping because of lack of motivation. Maybe my depression medication needs to be kicked up a notch – are there any ideas for beating this without an increase in medication?

Do a workout you havent done in a while. When I’m lacking interest I like to run a workout where I have to hit a certain split each mile to keep me thinking about what I’m doing and trying to accomplish a goal every 6-8 minutes. This doesn’t even have to be a fast workout. Maybe see how close to 8:00 you can run each mile (or whatever time works for you). It always helps me when I have something immediate to try to accomplish…hope it helps you too.

okay… I’m nit-picking here… but I think boredom and lack of motivation might be two different problems… on the other hand you could have both problems… and the wonderful solutions already given will help both to an extent…

but I’ve also noticed that while I get bored with the same old routine and find that changing it helps, lack of motivation may be something deeper… stress from my job or from family stuff can wipe out all my good intentions of running even when THAT is what I need most… lucky for me I have an understanding spouse who has been known to tell me to take a day off from work or from house work and go hit the trail… he knows that while a couple miles on the road will help a little, the same distance out in the woods will help a lot…

sometimes the solution is a day off where I sleep till noon… sometimes it’s realizing that I have half of an unfinished project that is driving me crazy and I need my family to go away for the day while I finish it… but I tend to obsess to extremes so being able to identify the underlying issue helps a great deal…

once it was as simple as making a decision as to the next marathon I was going to run, then I set up my long runs schedule and felt at ease since I knew how to work through those four months and could tell my friends and family “we had better do stuff NOW before my training get serious”

good luck, and if you come up with any new cures for that feeling let us all in on it..

I’m going to part company with Rita on this one. I’ve found that lack of motivation is actually a symptom of boredom. As suggested before, running the same course at different distances over and over will drive just about anyone mad. You start to get bored with it but quickly take the attitude that you have to, or “should”, fight through it. That idea in and of itself might push you for another few weeks, but the boredom comes back in short order. You can’t see anything wrong with your running in terms of technique, pacing and/or distance (at least nothing that you weren’t previously aware of, anyway) but you can’t seem to figure out why it takes more and more energy to get out there. Your motivation drops, you begin having second thoughts on what have been staples to your program and frustration sets in.

That’s how it happens for me, anyway. I’ve found that changing aspects of my training cures this almost immediately, although there may be an adjustment period if you try something brand new. For example, if you get locked into a course and run it in a dead-horse fashion, you might be mentally attached to it and uncomfortable on a new one, but that will pass. I’ve actually been thinking about this for a little while, now. Salisbury and the surrounding towns are as flat as flat can be so I’ve been running on a track since I got back to it a few months ago. I figured, “Hey, if it’s all flat, what’s the difference?”. Making the same four left turns incessantly comes to mind, now. I’m going to seek out a new route tonight, probably around that same school I run at.

I used to run on a “highway” back home. It was relatively safe with about a 6′ shoulder and light traffic but unfortunately there’s nothing like that around here for miles. The neighborhood roads are mostly in bad shape so I have to be careful out there. One wrong step on some loose pavement and the fat guy will be out for a month.